


Voluntary

by Purrs



Series: Voluntary [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 1: The Invasion, Gen, yeerk peace movement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 13:11:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrs/pseuds/Purrs
Summary: It all started at the construction site, at least for the others. Jake already knew about Andalites and the whole Yeerk invasion. You could say he had an inside perspective. But how do you lead a team when you're constantly keeping secrets from them - and how do you fight the Yeerks when you have one in your own head?





	1. The Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Innumerable thanks to Poetry, who has been instrumental in helping me flesh out the story and has given me so much encouragement. You are an amazing person.

_It was our parents’ anniversary, so they were off at a fancy restaurant while Tom was in charge. He’d had a Sharing meeting that night, though, so he dragged me there with him. He always had Sharing meetings these days. This time, it was a beach party, bonfire and all._

_I’d never tell Tom this (he’s weirdly obsessed with the Sharing), but the meetings were kind of boring. Maybe it’d be more fun if my friends were there, but the only person I sort of knew was Melissa Chapman. She’s my cousin Rachel’s friend and the daughter of our vice principal. She wasn’t even here this time—I think she had a gymnastics meet or something. Of course there was Tom, but he was off hanging out with the other full members. What did they do there, anyway?_

_I had nothing else to do. I might as well see if I could find that out._

_They were a couple of dunes away, twenty or so people, just out of earshot range from the main gathering. There was some guy on the lookout, but he was on the other side of the group from me. As I walked closer, I was grateful for the sand underfoot. It didn’t make all that much noise if I stepped carefully. Soon enough, I could hear them._

_“—nearly all of the staff and a good number of the student body, so it’s about time we added an entrance to the Pool on campus.” The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. What was that about? There already was an entrance to the pool. How else would the swim team get in? And since when was the Sharing involved with school stuff?_

_“Certainly. We’ll have to work slowly to not attract attention, but it should be installed by the end of the quarter.” I knew that voice, at least. Mr. Chapman. “Smart thinking, 152. You’ll get a promotion in no—yes, 114?”_

_The person who replied was Tom. I wasn’t sure who or what the numbers referred to. “My host’s brother is spying on us, Visser.” Tom pointed at me, and all twenty or so heads snapped to look in my direction._

_I raised my hand weakly and waved. “Hi?” This was way too intimidating. Was the Sharing secretly a cult or something?_

_“Get him!” Chapman hissed._

_A bunch of them started running at me, and I was outta there. I took off over the dunes. Unfortunately, the loose sand that was so good at muffling my footsteps was not nearly so good for running on; I stumbled, fell, and hit my head hard on a big chunk of driftwood._

 

.

 

Tobias saw it first, and I followed his gaze: a gleam in the sky, like a shooting star but not. It drew closer, forming an identifiable shape. A narrow body, ending in a distinctive sharp Shredder that curved over the ship like a tail. The rest of it—the thruster wings, the oblong cockpit—was barely an afterthought compared to that deadly-looking point. A nervous chatter started up as my friends noticed. Just what you’d expect from a group of teens on first sight of an alien ship. Me, though, I stood frozen, because I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

My name is Jake. If I said this was my last day as a normal kid, I’d be lying. My life hadn’t been normal for a long time. But it was the first day I could do something about it.

At the moment, though, I didn’t know that yet. Instead, I was getting the attention of the alien who lived inside my head. «Mielan! There’s an Andalite fighter landing right in front of us!»

«You're joking.» My eyes widened and my body stiffened, accompanied by the faint sense of nausea that bled through whenever they took control. «You're not joking.» Mielan bit my lip. «We should run.»

«No way.» A sick feeling grew in the pit of my stomach as the ship settled onto the dirt. «I’m sticking with my friends. If we all live, they’re probably going to become hosts, and I can’t abandon them in their last free moments.»

“It’s safe,” Tobias announced to the ship’s occupant (or was it occupants? We wouldn’t know until they came out). My eyes flashed over to him. He stood, his back to the rest of us, hands raised to show he wasn’t a threat. (Yeerks with Hork-Bajir hosts used the gesture to mean the exact opposite, because of the blades on their arms. I didn’t know how an Andalite would take it.) He had a calm confidence in his bearing, which I guess made him a better spokesman than any of the rest of us. “We won’t hurt you,” he continued. If the Andalite was hostile, Tobias would be the first victim.

«I’d like my body back now,» I told Mielan.

“Please, come out,” Tobias repeated. We won’t hurt you.”

«I know,» came a mental voice that wasn’t Mielan. The Andalite.

Mielan removed their grasp on my body, and I glanced around at the others. Cassie met my gaze and held it for a bit; Rachel was looking around herself in search of the source of the voice; Marco gave a ghost of a laugh, trying to convince the rest of us that he wasn’t freaked out.

“Did everyone hear that?” Tobias murmured.

All of us nodded slowly as one. I nodded a second time, for my own sake. No offense to Mielan, but I liked having control of myself.

Tobias raised his voice again. “Can you come out?”

«Yes,» the Andalite said. «Do not be frightened.»

“We won’t be frightened,” Tobias confirmed.

“Sure we won’t,” I agreed, completely petrified.

The door of the fighter slid open, a curve of light piercing the shadows and growing wider by the second. All too soon, we could see the figure within.

It was thin, with delicate arms and seven long fingers. Its four hooves supported a slender frame like a centaur. Mielan and I hadn’t actually seen an Andalite before, aside from the occasional glimpse of Visser Three. We knew about the blue-tan fur, the eyestalks, the tailblade. I could hardly keep my eyes off that tailblade, honestly. It was intimidating. But I hadn’t realized that when you left out that natural weapon, the rest of an Andalite looked surprisingly weak.

«It’s the Beast,» Mielan said, terrified, just as Tobias offered a gentle “Hello.”

Tobias was grinning. Part of me was tempted to smile as well. The Andalite had an aura or something about it, trying to make me feel friendly towards it. The Visser had an aura like that too, though, one of fear. No one who was trying to manipulate your emotions like that could be trusted.

And this Andalite was the Beast. Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. He’d slaughtered thousands of Yeerks and their hosts. Of all Andalites we could run into, of course it had to be him.

«Hello,» Beast Elfangor said affably.

“Hi,” everyone replied, except for Mielan, who didn’t want to give themself away and besides was busy mentally whimpering.

The Andalite started to step out of the fighter, but stumbled and collapsed to the ground. Tobias rushed to his side (he couldn’t know this was the Beast, couldn’t know the danger) and tried to help him up, but Elfangor was too heavy to lift. All Tobias did was shift the Andalite’s body, which showed off the huge burn mark on his side.

“Look!” Cassie pointed to the injury. “He’s hurt.”

«Yes,» Elfangor agreed, «I am dying.»

I felt torn. The Beast was a murderer. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill me to get to Mielan if he knew they were there. But he was just lying there in pain. He was almost pitiful.

“Can we help you? We can call an ambulance or something,” said Marco.

“We can bandage that wound,” Cassie offered. “Jake, give me your shirt. We can tear it up and make bandages.”

«No. I will die. The wound is fatal.»

I’d been too quiet. I had to say something. Right, okay, I was Normal Jake, didn’t know about Andalites or Yeerks, didn’t know that he was a war criminal, all I knew was that he was going to die. You generally don’t want people to die. “No!” I cried. “You’re the first alien on Earth, you can’t die on us!”

«I am not the first. There are many, many others.»

“Other aliens? Like you?” Tobias demanded.

«Not like me.» Elfangor shook his head. Suddenly he let out a silent wail, and in that moment I swear I could physically feel his pain. «Not like me,» he repeated. «They are different.»

“How are they different?” Marco asked.

They live in your head and help with your math homework. But that wasn’t what the Beast said.

He said, «They have come to destroy you.»

I couldn’t help but grimace. Hopefully everyone thought I just didn’t like the idea of being destroyed.

«They are called Yeerks,» Elfangor said. «They are different from us. Different from you, as well.»

Rachel demanded, “Are you telling us they’re already here on Earth?”

«Many are here. Hundreds. Maybe more.»

With the recent spawn, the Pool had just edged over twenty thousand, actually.

«They’re starting to talk,» Mielan told me, and showed a pride-tinged memory of a tiny Yeerk squeaking out babble.

«Can you brag about the babies later?» I knew more than enough about those little ones. I wasn’t sure whether Yeerks were ridiculously parental as a whole, or if it’s just Mielan. If it’s all of them, I figured it made up for the actual parents not being there to care for their kids.

Marco asked why no one had noticed them. But plenty of people were aware of the Yeerks. If he wanted to find some, he could just check out the next Sharing meeting.

«You do not understand. Yeerks are different. They have no body, like yours or mine. They live in the bodies of other species. They are…» and Elfangor sent us a visual. It was about the least flattering picture of a Yeerk you could imagine.

“I’m guessing that was a Yeerk. Either that or a very big wad of slimy chewing gum,” Marco cracked.

I laughed despite myself.

«Hey!» Mielan objected.

«Sorry.»

«They are almost powerless without hosts. They—» Elfangor let out another psychic burst of agony. Mielan wondered how he could be in so much pain and still insist on upholding the typical Andalite superiority. «The Yeerks are parasites. They must have a host to live in. In this form they are known as Controllers. They enter the brain and are absorbed into it, taking over the host’s thoughts and feelings. They try to get the host to accept them voluntarily. It is easier that way. Otherwise the host may be able to resist, at least a little.»

My thoughts turned to the cages at the Pool. People screaming, people sobbing, people just...sitting there, too hopeless to care anymore. The cages were cold and wet and confined, but they were the most many people had been able to experience by themselves for far too long. Myself, I could have hung out in the voluntary area while Mielan was feeding, but I’d always pretended to be involuntary. At least that way I could spend time with my brother when it was really him.

“Are you saying they take over _human beings?_ People? These things take over their bodies?” Rachel asked.

«We’re people too,» Mielan said to me irritably.

“So why are you telling us? Why not the government or something?” I asked.

«We had hoped to stop them,» the Beast continued. «Swarms of their Bug fighters were waiting when our Dome ship came out of Z-Space. We knew of their mother ship and were ready for the Bug fighters, but the Yeerks surprised us—they had hidden a powerful Blade ship in a crater of your moon. We fought, but... we lost. They have tracked me here. They will be here soon to eliminate all traces of me and my ship.»

"How can they do that?" Cassie asked.

Elfangor smiled with his eyes. «Their Dracon beams will leave nothing behind but a few molecules of this ship, and... this body. I sent a message to my home world. We Andalites fight the Yeerks wherever they go throughout the universe. My people will send help, but it may take a year, even more, and by then the Yeerks will have control of this planet. After that, there is no hope. You must tell people. You must warn your people!» Another spasm of pain ripped through him, and we knew his time was nearly up.

«No hope,» Mielan said bitterly. «Like we’re nothing but evil monsters.»

«He’s _dying_ ,» I stressed. We could afford to give him some leniency.

"No one is ever going to believe us," Marco said hopelessly. He looked at me and shook his head. "No way." He wasn’t entirely right. Visser Three certainly would.

"I don't care if he thinks he's going to die, we have to try and help him," Rachel said. "We can get him to a hospital. Or maybe Cassie's parents... "

«There is no time. No time,» the Andalite said. Then his eyes brightened. «Perhaps…»

"What?"

«Go into my ship. You will see a small blue box, very plain. Bring it to me. Quickly! I have very little time, and the Yeerks will find me soon.»

We all looked at each other. Who was going to be the one to go inside the ship? Somehow, everyone ended up looking at me.

No. Not happening. No way I was going inside some Andalite craft that probably had some sort of Yeerk-detecting measures. Mielan could die. _I_ could die. The Beast could realize what we were and slaughter us in front of the others. I opened my mouth to refuse.

“Go ahead,” Cassie said. “You’re not scared.”

Sure, I wasn’t scared. I was terrified.

Marco grinned at me. “What, are you chicken?”

Normal Jake would take that as a challenge. Normal Jake wouldn’t be worried in the first place. If I backed down now, they’d be suspicious. I shook my head and grinned back. “No way, man.”

I sauntered through the door of the ship and took several deep breaths once I was inside. Okay, no alarms or Shredder beams. That made me feel a lot more at ease. All the walls and furniture were this soft cream color, and all the edges were rounded. It looked way too cozy for a genocidal Beast.

«Misdirection,» Mielan asserted.

The sky-blue box sitting on a table stood out bright against the ship’s color scheme, so it was easy to find. I hesitated before touching it—what if the _box_ was a trap?—but I didn’t really have any other options, so I picked it up. It was heavier than I thought it would be from its size. As I turned to leave, a three-dimensional picture caught my eye: four Andalites standing together, two big and elegant, one small and awkward, one Elfangor. His family, I realized. He was going to die millions of miles away from the people he loved.

I half expected Mielan to say something bad about Elfangor again. ‘He’s killed plenty of Yeerks with loved ones,’ something like that. But instead, they asked quietly, «Can we take that picture too?»

I nodded, shifted the blue box to one hand, and picked up the projector with the other. The image cut out when it got detached from the ship’s power. The projector went in my pocket, and I went back to holding the box with both hands. And then I walked back out to my friends.

“Here’s the box,” I told Elfangor, holding it out.

«Thank you.» He took it from me. «There is something I may be able to do to help you fight the Yeerks.»

Us? Fight the Yeerks? A few kids and a so-called Controller?

“What?” Rachel demanded.

«I know that you are young. I know that you have no power with which to resist the Controllers. But I may be able to give you some small powers that may help.»

We all looked at each other, except Tobias, who just kept gazing at Prince Elfangor.

«If you wish, I can give you powers that no other human being has ever had.»

“Powers?” I frowned. Andalites never shared anything, especially not something fancy enough to be called _powers_.

«It is a piece of Andalite technology that the Yeerks do not have,» Elfangor explained. «A technology that enables us to pass unnoticed in many parts of the universe—» He didn’t mean—«the power to _morph_.» No, this couldn’t be happening. «We have never shared this power. But your need is great.» No. No way. Andalites didn’t give their things to other species, at least not since Seerow. It was a fact of the universe. And the Escafil device, that wonder of technology? Not a chance. But undeniably, right in front of me, was an Andalite—the Beast, of all people—offering morphing technology to a bunch of humans he literally just met. I desperately wanted to know what Elfangor was thinking right now. What had possibly convinced him to do this.

That said, I certainly wouldn’t turn the offer down.

“Morph? Morph how?” Rachel asked, eyes narrowed.

«To change your bodies,» he said. «To become any other species. Any animal.»

Marco laughed derisively. “Become animals?”

«You will only need to touch a creature, to acquire its DNA pattern, and you will be able to _become_ that creature. It requires concentration and determination, but, if you are strong, you can do it. There are… limitations. Problems. Dangers, even. But there is no time to explain it all… no time. You will have to learn for yourselves. But first, do you wish to receive this power?»

“Yes,” my mouth said immediately, just as Marco asked me, “He’s kidding, right?” Then he looked at me weirdly. “ _You’re_ kidding, right?” When I had my body back, I shrugged.

Tobias shook his head. “He’s not kidding,” he said softly.

“This is unreal,” Marco said. “This whole thing is unreal. Yeerks and spaceships and slugs taking over people’s brains and Andalites and the power to change into animals? Give me a break.”

The Yeerks I’d gotten used to months ago. But what was happening right now? “Yeah, it’s beyond weird,” I agreed.

“We’re off the map of weirdness by this point,” Rachel said. “But unless we’re all just dreaming, I think we’d better deal with this.”

“He’s dying,” Tobias reminded us.

“ _I’ll_ do it,” Cassie said, and I flashed a smile at her.

“I think we should all decide together,” I said, “one way or the other.” With at least me, Cassie, and probably Tobias—three out of five, a majority—we’d all get the morphing power, which would help keep my friends from being infested.

“What’s that?” Rachel asked. She was pointing up at the sky, and I felt a sense of déjà vu. I looked up and saw two pinpoints of bright red light in the sky. Bug fighters.

«Yeerks,» Elfangor said in our minds, so full of hatred that Mielan practically cringed themself out of my ear.

The fighters slowed as they approached us.

«There is no more time. You must decide!»

“We have to do this,” Tobias said. “How else can we fight these Controllers?”

“This is so ridiculous!” Marco said. “Ridiculous.”

“I’d like more time, but we don’t have that choice,” Rachel said. “I’m for it.”

“What do you say, Jake?” Cassie asked me. It was funny, how suddenly it felt like I was in charge, when I was the one here who actually had a Yeerk in my head.

Mielan had said yes for me earlier, so it was lucky that I felt the same way. “I’m with Tobias. We have to.”

«Then each of you, press your hand against one of the sides of the cube.»

We did. Five hands, each pressed against one side. Then a sixth hand, blue, with too many fingers.

«Do not be afraid,» Prince Elfangor said.

Something like a shock ran through me, except it felt nice. This couldn’t be happening. This was a dream. I was going to wake up to Temrash telling me that I had to get ready or I’d be late for school, and that while of course school didn’t actually matter, it was important to keep up appearances.

«Go now,» he said. «Only remember this—never remain in animal form for more than two of your Earth hours. Never! That is the greatest danger of the morphing! If you stay longer than two hours you will be trapped, unable to return to human form.»

“Two hours,” I repeated, then hesitated. “Are you sure this will work for humans, and not just Andalites? Can we try it out now?”

«I—» Another wave of fear made its way through his thoughtspeech link. He was staring up at the sky with his main eyes, looking at something.

«Visser Three! He comes.»

«The Visser?» Mielan echoed. «Oh, _no_.»

“What?” I managed to say, still acting like Normal Jake (okay, now it was Not Entirely Normal Jake) but with a very real sense of terror. “What’s a Visser? Who’s a Visser?”

«Go now,» Elfangor repeated insistently. «Run! Visser Three is here. He is the most deadly of your enemies. Of all Yeerks he alone has the power to morph.» Not anymore he wasn’t. «The same power you now have. Run!»

“No, we’ll stay with you,” Rachel said firmly. “Maybe we can help.”

He smiled at us with his eyes again, but it was a sad smile. «No. You must save yourselves. Save yourselves and save your planet! The Yeerks are here.»

We looked up to see what he’d been looking at: the Bug fighters were descending, accompanied by Visser Three’s Blade ship.

My lips moved faster than my thoughts. “What about the box?” my mouth demanded.

«Mielan, this isn’t—» But Elfangor was already pressing the device into my hands. I looked at it disbelievingly.

“But how are we supposed to fight these… these Controllers?” Rachel demanded.

«You must find a way. Now _run!_ »

We ran. All but Tobias, who knelt next to Elfangor and took his hand. Elfangor pressed his other hand against Tobias’s head, and Tobias rocked back like he’d been shocked. Then Elfangor started looking like he was dazed or something, but as Tobias got up and started running, the Andalite came out of it a little.

A beam of bright red light from a Bug fighter washed over Elfangor and his ship, soon joined by the other fighter’s beam. I only just managed to get out of the way before I would have been lit up. Tobias wasn’t as lucky, but he made it out after a second. I’d never thought darkness could be so reassuring. The five of us crouched behind a crumbly low wall, afraid to look but afraid to look away.

«Where’d the Escafil device go?» Mielan panicked. «We had it! We did! I—We need it!»

I reflexively looked down at my hands to confirm its absence. And no, it didn’t look like my friends had it either. Elfangor? I peeked back up over the wall. No, he didn’t have it. Where was that box?

I was abruptly distracted from my search when the Bug fighters landed on either side of the Andalite fighter.

“Okay, you can wake me up now,” Marco whispered. “I’ve had enough of this dream.”

The Blade ship descended. I started feeling that fear I got every time Visser Three stopped by the Pool, multiplied by like a hundred. The ship almost landed on a rusty old earthmover, but at the last moment a Dracon cannon disintegrated it. Cassie started to scream when the door opened. I slapped my hand over her mouth.

A group of Hork-Bajir leaped from the ship, slashing the air with their blades and generally looking menacing.

«Hork-Bajir-Controllers,» Elfangor said, faint with the distance. «The Hork-Bajir are a good people, despite their fearsome looks. But they have been enslaved by the Yeerks. Each of them now carries a Yeerk in his head. They are to be pitied.»

«Some of my friends have Hork-Bajir hosts,» Mielan said to me sullenly.

“Pity. Right,” Rachel said grimly. “They’re walking killing machines. Look at them!”

Some Taxxons slipped out of the ship then, drawing our attention. «Taxxon-Controllers,» Elfangor said. «The Taxxons are evil.»

“Yeah,” Marco said. “I think I would have guessed that.”

«Yeerks are evil. Taxxons are evil,» Mielan muttered. «So of course killing a few hundred Taxxons and their Yeerks makes you a hero.»

More Taxxons and Hork-Bajir poured from the Blade ship, armed with Dracon beams. They made a ring around Elfangor and the Andalite fighter.

Suddenly, one of the Hork-Bajir broke off from the group and ran right toward us. I might have been imagining things, but I could have sworn he was looking straight at me. We hit the dirt. As long as we couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see us. I caught a glimpse of Marco’s face, all bug-eyed and mouth contorted in terror.

«Silence!» Elfangor warned. «Hork-Bajir do not see well in darkness, but their hearing is very good.»

We sat there in darkness, huddled behind the wall, for what seemed like hours. My heart pounded like a drum in my ears. We were shuddering and our teeth were chattering and he had to be hearing us. Any moment we’d be dead.

«Courage, my friends,» Prince Elfangor told us.

I didn’t stop being scared, but suddenly I felt comforted, too. Warm. I could breathe again. I took back everything I said earlier about people who could manipulate your emotions. People like that were _great_.

And eventually, the Hork-Bajir moved away, and we dared to look over the wall again.

Just in time to see Visser Three come out of the Blade ship.

«Visser Three,» Elfangor said.

“What the…” Rachel said. “Isn’t that an Andalite?”

«Only once has a Yeerk been able to take an Andalite body,» Elfangor said. «There is only one Andalite-Controller. That one is Visser Three.»

Visser Three walked confidently over to Elfangor. It was like a twisted mirror. One was powerful and menacing, the other wounded and weak.

«Well, well,» Visser Three said, and my friends freaked out.

“Can he hear our thoughts?” Cassie whispered.

“If he can we’re so dead I don’t even want to think about it,” Rachel told her.

«He cannot hear your thoughts,» Elfangor said. «As long as you don’t direct them to him. You humans would not even be able to send him your thoughts while not in morph. You hear his thoughts because he is broadcasting them for all to hear. This is a great victory for him, so he wants all to hear.»

«What have we here? A meddling Andalite?» Visser Three looked more closely at the other Andalite. «Ah, but no ordinary Andalite warrior. Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, if I am not mistaken. How many of our fighters have you shredded? Seven, or was it eight by the time the battle ended?»

«With everything else, I almost forgot he was the Beast,» Mielan murmured.

«The very last Andalite in this sector of space. Yes, I’m afraid your Dome ship has been completely destroyed. Completely. I watched it burn as it fell into the atmosphere of this little world.»

«There will be others,» Elfangor said.

The Visser took a step closer. «Yes, and when they come it will be too late. This world will be mine. My own contribution to the Yeerk Empire. Our greatest conquest. And then I’ll be Visser _One_.»

«What do you want with these Humans?» Elfangor asked. «You have your Taxxon allies. You have your Hork-Bajir slaves. And other slaves from other worlds. Why these people?»

«Because there are so many, and they are so weak,» Visser Three sneered. «Billions of bodies! And they have no idea what’s happening. With this many hosts we can spread throughout the universe, unstoppable! Billions of us. We’ll have to build a thousand new Pools just to raise Yeerks for half this number of bodies. Face it, Andalite, you have fought well and bravely. But you have lost.»

Visser Three stepped right up to Elfangor. I could feel Elfangor’s fear, but he still climbed to his feet. He knew he was going to die, but at least he could face his death well.

«I promise you one thing, Prince Elfangor,» the Visser continued. «When we have this planet, with its rich harvest of bodies, we will move against the Andalite homeworld. I will personally hunt down your family. And I will personally oversee the placement of my most faithful lieutenants in their heads. I hope that they will resist, so I can hear their minds scream.»

Elfangor struck! His tail whipped up and over, so fast you couldn’t really see it. The Visser twisted his head aside. The Andalite’s tail blade missed the Visser’s head by barely half an inch and sliced into his shoulder. Blood sprayed from the wound.

«Aaaaaarrrrrgh!» Visser Three’s howl of pain etched itself in my head.

At the same time, a blinding blue beam of silent Shredder light shot from the tail of the Andalite ship. It sliced into the nearest Bug fighter, and people scattered. I could feel a wave of blistering heat, even from behind the wall. The fighter sizzled and disappeared.

«Fire!» Visser Three yelled. «Burn his ship!»

Red Dracon beams lanced from the Blade ship and the second Bug fighter. The Andalite fighter glowed white-hot and disintegrated slowly. With the beams lighting up the night, I could make out a small group of humans behind Visser Three. One of them was probably Chapman, our vice principal and Visser One-Thirty-Two. Another… oh, jeez, why did it have to be Tom?

I said nothing to my friends. I didn’t think they noticed.

«Take the Andalite,» Visser Three ordered his soldiers. «Hold him for me.»

Three big Hork-Bajir grabbed Elfangor and held him down. Their wrist blades were at his throat, but they knew better than to kill him.

Visser Three was a big fan of getting hands-on with his work.

He started to morph. His head grew and grew. Just as it would have overbalanced him, his legs started growing too, getting to be as thick as redwoods. They merged into just two legs somewhere along the way. His arms sprouted into a tangle of tentacles.

“This isn’t real,” Cassie whispered. “This isn’t real.”

The huge head split like it had been sliced open. Long, sharp teeth grew into the mouth. “R-r-r-r-a-a-a-w-w-w-w-g-g-g!” Visser Three roared, making the ground shake.

My hands slammed over my ears.

“R-r-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-a-g-g-g!”

My mouth started whimpering. I felt sick. I couldn’t tell whether it was from Mielan or if it was just part of the terror I was feeling.

The Visser reached out with a thick tentacle and grabbed Elfangor by the neck. The Hork-Bajir backed off. I wondered what they were thinking, being forced to do all this.

“No, no, no,” I heard Cassie whispering over and over again. “No, no, no.”

“Don’t look,” Rachel said to her. She put her arm around Cassie’s shoulder and held her close. Then she took Tobias’s hand and squeezed it hard. This was why I admired my cousin: even scared to death, with tears running down her face, Rachel had strength to spare.

Visser Three lifted Elfangor high into the air. Elfangor struck again and again with his tail, but he could only manage useless pinpricks against the monster that was the Visser.

Visser Three raised the prince higher and opened his mouth.

Elfangor fell in.

The mouth closed on him.

My head filled with a long, agonizing wail.

The wail cut out. The silence was worse.

Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, the Beast, the murderer of Mielan’s kind, the hero, the breaker of Seerow’s Kindness for the sake of a handful of children, who in his last moments fought the Yeerks by helping a Yeerk, was dead.


	2. First Morphs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An infestation, and some conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!

_When I woke up, I freaked, and for good reason. There was a dinosaur thing covered in knives on either side of me, holding my arms tight. I flailed. I screamed. It didn’t do me any good. There were other screams, too. They didn’t sound human. I stopped, eventually, just stood and panted. One of the dinosaur things called out something in a language I didn’t know._

_Mr. Chapman stepped into view. Okay, this had to be a dream. My vice principal had no reason to be in this place, this huge cavern with a huge dark lake and monsters. He had no reason to plunge his hand into the swirling gray liquid, or to pull out a slug, or to shove it in my face. It was scary how calm he looked._

_The slug crawled into my ear. I didn’t know how it could do that, or why this wasn’t hurting, but it was getting in my_ head _. I screamed again, as if that would help._

_Suddenly, my mouth stopped screaming. My spine straightened. My eyes scanned the area and focused on Mr. Chapman. “Visser?” my mouth said in a tone of mild confusion._

_“Identify yourself,” Chapman commanded._

_“Ravet 073,” my mouth said._

_“073?” Chapman repeated. “This is not your usual feeding time. Why are you not in your host?”_

_“She is ill and unconscious. It should be only a few more days, Visser.”_

_Chapman nodded and held his hand up to my ear. I felt a sort of pressure building until the slug squished out. He dropped the slug back in the gray liquid and pulled out another from it._

_I was flexing my fingers because I could, gasping out breaths, kicking my legs. What had just happened?_

_Then Chapman brought the next slug over, then the next, then the next. They all had ‘hosts’, too, though those were ‘horkbajeer’ or ‘ged’. When the last slug slipped into my ear, something was different. Like the other times, my body moved by itself, my eyes rolled around in their sockets. Unlike the other times, I felt like I was going to throw up. I figured it was just the effects of the whole experience._

_«Oh,» came a mental voice. Just the one word. Its owner sounded as miserable as I felt._

_“Is there a problem?” Chapman asked._

_“N-no, no problem,” my mouth said._

_“No problem,_ Visser _,” Chapman snapped._

_“Right. I mean, right, Visser.”_

_There was a moment of awkward silence._

_“Well?” Chapman said. “Identify yourself.”_

_“Mielan 236, Visser,” my mouth said quickly._

_“236. You are hostless, is that correct?”_

_“Yes, Visser.”_

_«_ Help me _,» wailed the mental voice. ‘Mielan’. How did it expect me to help it, and why did it think I’d_ want _to? «I don’t_ know! _» it said. It could read my thoughts. God, that was creepy._

_“Good,” said Chapman. “This boy is your host now.”_

_“Yes, Visser.”_

_«I’m sorry.»_

_He gestured, and the dinosaur things—«Hork-Bajir,» Mielan interjected—let go of me and walked away. Chapman started walking, and my legs followed. My body was all tense. He led me up the longest flight of stairs I’d ever climbed. At the top of the stairs was Tom._

_Chapman nodded to Tom. “114.”_

_“Visser,” Tom acknowledged._

_“This is Mielan 236. 236, this is Sub-Visser Eighty-Two.” With that said, he started back down the stairs, and I was left alone with Tom, which was maybe even scarier. You expect vice principals to be awful. Tom, though – it was like I didn’t know him anymore._

_He looked me in the eye and turned around. My body followed him through a couple of different doors, into a walk-in fridge, and finally out into a McDonald's. The cashier smiled at us as we left and got into our car._

_“Your job is to act as my host’s brother,” Tom said as he pulled out of the parking lot, “and recruit if possible. Understand?”_

_“Yes, Temrash,” my mouth said._

_«I don't think I could pretend to be you nearly as well as you can,» Mielan said. It sounded pretty nervous. «I’m not an ‘it’,» it protested. «I'm a—» a million memories of random conversations flashed through my mind— «a ‘them’,» they settled on._

_Okay. That wasn't weirder than anything else tonight._  

 

.

 

The rest of the night passed in a sort of haze. We were spotted by some Hork-Bajir. They chased us. We managed to escape and find our ways back home. I called around, just to make sure everyone was safe. I lay down in my bed with the lights off.

I couldn’t sleep. Literally couldn’t. Mielan was pressing down hard on whatever part of the brain controlled that, I guess. Yeerks don’t sleep the way humans do, and after everything that had happened, Mielan didn’t want to be alone. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t either.

“Jake, are you awake in there?” Mom pounded on the door the next morning.

“Yeah.” I faked a yawn. Having someone mess with your brain chemistry was great for not feeling tired, although it’d hit me hard tonight. “I’m up.”

“Your friend Tobias is here.”

“Tobias?”

“It’s me.” Tobias’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Um, sure.” I sat on my bed as the door opened. I heard Tobias say thank you to my mom.

He was glowing. I swear, he was glowing. Not like he was radioactive or anything, I don’t mean that. It’s just that his eyes were shining bright, and his face was one big grin, and he seemed to be tingling with energy, bouncing like he couldn’t stand still.

“I did it,” Tobias said.

“What did you do?”

“I became Dude.”

Dude is Tobias’s cat. I gaped. “Wait, you morphed?”

“It was so amazing. It didn’t hurt or anything. I was petting him, and thinking about the whole thing last night, right? So I thought, why not give it a try?” He was pacing back and forth, snapping his fingers, bursting with enthusiasm. Very _unlike_ Tobias. “I didn’t even know how to begin. So I just made sure the door to my room was locked. Fortunately, my uncle was still asleep. So there I was, just sitting on my bed, thinking about it. Concentrating. Thinking about becoming Dude. I looked down at my hand.” He grinned at me. “What do you think I saw, Jake?”

“What?”

“Fur! And I was growing claws, too. You should have seen the _real_ Dude. He went wild. I had to put him outside before I could morph all the way. He clawed me up pretty good.”

I leaned forward. “Tell me more.”

“Being a cat is so… it’s… I can’t even describe it. You’re so strong, for one thing. Just all this coiled power, and the way you can move! You know what I did? I jumped onto my dresser. Three feet straight up in the air, and I landed like a feather. Three feet! You know how high that is when you’re a cat? It’s like a person jumping maybe thirty feet straight up.”

I stood up, grinning widely, and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna find Homer.” Tobias just grinned right back.

I walked through the hallway, into the living room where Homer definitely wasn’t, stuck my head into the kitchen, checked the backyard, passed the living room again and there was now a dog in there. I rolled my eyes. “Homer!” He perked up and looked at me, tail wagging lazily. “Here, boy!” Homer’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, but he didn’t move. I stuck out a hand. “C’mon, Homer.”

Homer trotted over and barked at me. I grabbed his collar and led him into my room, then shut the door behind me. I turned to Tobias. “Okay, how do I do this?”

“Put your hand on him somewhere,” he started, “then just focus on becoming him. You have to _want_ it.”

I scratched Homer behind the ears where he likes it, and concentrated. I tried to picture what it would be like to be a dog. He went really still for a bit, almost like he was asleep on his feet but his eyes were still open. _Become a dog_ , I thought to myself. _Be all furry and stuff._ My hand started itching, so I rubbed at it. It felt fluffy.

I lifted my hand and stared at it. “Whoa.”

My other hand lifted over and poked at the fur a couple times, then tugged at it. «That’s just wrong.»

«Come _on_ , Mielan, I’ve _got_ to try this!»

Tobias grinned. “Keep going!”

“You got it.” Fur grew up my arm, and all over my body. My ears started moving upward, getting longer, flopping over. «No, no no, no no NO,» Mielan repeated, but they didn’t make any moves to stop the morphing. «It’ll be over in a bit, I promise,» I said. The bones in my legs changed shape, getting shorter and ruining my balance, and I almost fell down. “Oops,” I laughed, and sat down before anything else like that could happen. Then I had to shift position, because the tail I was growing made it really awkward to sit on my butt. My knees and ankles went up and up my legs until it looked like someone had put my legs on backwards.

«Jake?» There was a voice in my head. It was weird. I paid it no attention.

As the transformation continued, Homer started barking like wild. I lifted a paw-hand and batted at him a bit, but he kept at it. There was a knock on my bedroom door, a really loud one to my dog ears.

“Is the dog in there with you?” Tom! Tom was here! I liked Tom! I barked happily.

«Jake!»

I barked again.

« _Jake that’s Temra—_ oh, whatever.» Suddenly I couldn’t move. I would have whined, but I couldn’t make a sound. The door handle jiggled. Tom was coming in! I liked Tom!

“Make it be quiet, Two-Thr—”

My body bowled Tom over, licking at his face. I would have been happy to do that myself. «I’m keeping him from seeing inside!» my thoughtspeech broadcast privately to Tobias. «We can’t let Tom see that there are two Homers!»

Two of me? There were two of me? What?

My tongue went right over Tom’s eyeballs. He sputtered, shoving me off. “Get this mutt under control, or I can’t be held accountable for what happens to it.” Tom kicked me. I wanted to whimper. I was a bad dog. I didn’t want to be a bad dog. Tom stumbled away from my room, rubbing at his eyes.

My nose nudged the door shut. «Jake, I’m going to step back soon, and when I do, you need to be in control of yourself again.»

I stopped paying attention halfway through whatever the voice was. There was another dog! He smelled like me! He was barking. I wanted to bark too!

«Jake. You aren’t a dog. You’re human.»

There was this one smell in the room that I couldn’t quite place...what was it…

«You’re scaring me, Jake!»

«Sorry,» I replied absently.

A wave of emotion washed over me. Relief, worry, fading panic. It was way more complicated than dog emotions. I think that’s what snapped me all the way out of it. I could control my body - well, my copy of Homer’s body - again. I blinked a bit and turned to Tobias. «Right. Okay. Being a dog is really overwhelming.» This time, I was thinking aloud, so he could hear.

«Yes! It is! Be _careful_ , _please!_ »

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I could see that.”

«This was a bad idea,» I said. Tobias tried to object, but I continued. I began morphing back. «There could be Controllers in this house.» Tobias raised his eyebrows. « _Anyone_ can be one of them. Any morphing we’re going to do, we have to do it where there's no way someone could see us.» I lost all my fur. I was a naked dog-thing with a messed-up face.

“I think my uncle’s safe, at least. He’s too much of a deadbeat to be a Yeerk.” He lifted a shoulder. “You’re right, though, we should keep our guard up.”

My ankles and knees moved down my legs, and thumbs sprouted awkwardly out of the backs of what used to be my paws. «Yeah.» I’d never seen the man in the Pool or at the Sharing, but you couldn’t be entirely sure. He could always just have a different schedule from me.

Tobias shrugged. “So where can we do this?”

I thought for a moment. «Cassie’s -» My thoughtspeech cut out, so I had to wait until my voice worked again. In the meantime, I had hands again, so I shoved my clothes back on. “Cassie’s barn, maybe.”

He nodded and moved for the door. “See you there, then.” He lowered his voice, grinning. “Maybe I could get a bird and fly there or something.”

Man, that would be cool.

I walked him to the front door, said bye, and went to the kitchen phone to coordinate with the others. I’d just hung up from talking to Cassie when Temrash walked Tom into the room. Great. I did my best impression of a loyal low-ranking Yeerk. “Sub-Visser.”

“236.” He pulled out a chair and reclined in it. “Make some toast, would you? My host is hungry.”

“Yes, Sub-Visser.” I got out some bread and slid it in the toaster. He’d gotten cockier since he was promoted a few weeks ago. Not that he’d been very friendly before then, though. He didn’t really like Mielan and we felt the same way about him.

I buttered the toast, gave it to Temrash, and left the room. It was Saturday, so I had to mow the lawn. Once I’d done that, I hopped on my bike and made for Cassie’s farm.

I was the last to show up at the barn. Well, I didn't see Cassie, but this was where she lived. She was around somewhere.

“Hey, guys,” I said.

Rachel thrust a newspaper at me, pointing to an article. “Look.”

I skimmed the article. Disturbance in the construction site, claims of flying saucer sightings, and of course it all got blamed on unidentified teenagers with fireworks. The police were involved. There were a lot of Yeerks in the police.

“That sucks,” I said, looking up.

“Did you see the last part?” Rachel pressed. I had not. That’s what you get from skimming, I guess. I checked  the last few paragraphs. Oh, great, we were important enough for them to put out a reward for information on us.

“They’re looking for _us_ ,” Marco said.

“Yeah?” Not Entirely Normal Jake frowned. “Why would they do that? Why are they lying here?”

Marco laughed sardonically. “Let’s see, Captain Brilliant—would it be because the cops _are_ Controllers?”

“Probably not _all_ the cops,” Tobias pointed out.

“If the police have been infiltrated by the Controllers, who knows how many others have, too?” Rachel asked. “People in the government?” Definitely. “Teachers?” I couldn’t think of any at our school who _weren’t_ , though there were probably some. “The newspapers and the TV?” They were working on adding more, last I heard.

“Math teachers, for sure,” Marco joked.

Rachel sighed. “I tried to tell myself it was all a dream.”

“Yeah, I get that,” I said.

For a while no one said anything.

Marco spoke first. “Look, why do we have to deal with this? I say we just forget it. We never talk about it. We never _morph_. We just deal with our own lives.”

Tobias and Rachel both looked at me. They were waiting for me to argue with Marco.

My own life didn’t let me ever forget about the Yeerks. “Marco, I don’t think—”

“We could get killed!” he yelled. “Don’t you get it? You saw what happened to the Andalite. I mean, this is radical stuff, Jake. This is for real. Real! We could all get killed.”

I laughed in the relative privacy of my own head. There was no way five morph-capable hosts would be wasted like that.

In a quiet voice Marco said, “Look, I think these Controllers are jerks. But if something happened to me… my dad. He wouldn’t be able to handle it.” He shook his head. “You can all think I’m a weasel if you want. I don’t care. But if I get killed or something, my dad will flat-out die. He’s only hanging in there because of me.”

“There’s Cassie,” Rachel said, changing the subject. She was looking out at the field, where a horse was galloping toward us. It started slowing down as it approached. It didn’t have a rider. “Cassie and I have been here for a while. She’s really good at this. Look how fast she can do it.”

The horse’s eyes got smaller. Its muzzle became a human mouth. Cassie smiled at us with big horse teeth and said, “Hey, kids.”

Marco sat down. Very hard. I joined him. We hadn’t seen a human morphing.

Cassie continued to morph. Her torso grew out of the horse neck, wearing a skintight blue outfit, the kind girls wear to do gymnastics or something. For just a few seconds, she stayed like that, half-horse and half-human. Like a centaur. Or an Andalite. She was controlling the way she morphed.

“Jeez, Rachel,” I said. “You’re right. Cassie is good.”

The sound of tires on gravel. We spun around to see a black-and-white car coming down the road.

“The cops!” Tobias cried.

“Cassie. Morph. Now!” I snapped. “We do _not_ want to have to explain a half-horse half-person.”

“Which way should I morph?” Cassie wailed. “Horse or human?”

“Human, human, human!” I said. “Everybody, stand in front of her!”

We arranged ourselves just as the police car squealed to a stop. A single policeman stepped out, and I waved. I’d seen this guy before at Sharing meetings. The Yeerk was Sentil Two-something-something. I couldn’t remember his host’s name, though. I felt bad about that.

“Morning,” he said. “You kids, uh, hiding something?”

“Hiding something, officer?” I repeated.

“Step aside, all of you,” he ordered.

We did, revealing Cassie. Fully human. The policeman looked puzzled. But then he shrugged.

“Can we help you, officer?” Rachel asked in her best ‘responsible’ voice.

“We’re making some inquiries.” Sentil What’s-his-face made his host shoot Cassie one last confused glance, then focused on me. “We’re looking for some kids who were shooting off fireworks in the construction site across from the mall last night.”

Marco started coughing.

“Must have been some other teenagers,” I said quickly. “We were all together last night, and I can confirm no fireworks were involved.”

“Good for you,” he said. “You know, you look familiar. Haven’t I seen you at the Sharing?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought so.” He looked around at my friends. “The Sharing’s a great group. I’m one of the adult supervisors there. You should all come to a meeting sometime.”

I faked a laugh. “Yeah, I’ve asked them before, but they don’t seem interested. I’ll convince them one of these days.”

He nodded, satisfied. Finally, he took off.

“Okay, rule number one,” Rachel announced firmly. “We don’t do anything to attract attention. We have to be secret about _everything_. Especially morphing.”

Cassie looked embarrassed. “Yeah, it was stupid of me. It’s just, man! It is so amazing, running like that. Out in the open spaces, running and running.”

“How did you manage to morph with _clothing_?” Tobias asked. “When I did it…” He trailed off, but we got his meaning.

“It took some practice,” Cassie said, “and it can only be tight clothing. I tried it with a coat on. It got shredded. I don’t know what we’ll do in the winter.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” Marco said firmly. “Because there isn’t going to be any more morphing.”

“Maybe Marco is right,” Rachel said. “This is too big for us. We’re just kids. We need to find someone important to tell this to, someone we can trust.”

I shook my head, but Tobias got there first. “We can’t trust anyone,” he said flatly. “Anyone could be a Controller. We tell the wrong person, we are all dead. And the whole world will be doomed.”

“I don’t want to stop morphing,” Cassie said. “Do you realize all we could do with this power? We could communicate with animals, maybe. Help save endangered species.”

“Humans may be the next endangered species, Cassie,” Tobias said quietly.

“What do you say, Jake?” Cassie asked.

“Me?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Both sides make good points.” There was no question about it for me, but I didn’t really want to be the one to make this decision for everyone else. I had the least right to do that, all things considered.

“So what do we _do_?” Rachel demanded.

“Let’s vote on it,” I suggested.

“I vote we try to live long enough to get driver’s licenses,” Marco said.

“I vote we do what the Andalite said—fight,” Tobias said.

“You’ve never even been in a fight,” Marco sneered. “You can’t handle the punks at school. Suddenly now you want to kick butt on that Visser Three freakazoid?”

“I vote with Tobias,” Rachel said, giving Marco a dirty look. “I wish we could dump all this on someone else. But we can’t.”

“Let’s think it over for a while,” Cassie said. “This is a big decision. I mean, it’s not like we’re deciding whether to wear jeans or a skirt.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s wait for a while. But don’t say anything to anyone.”

Marco was smirking, like he thought he’d won. Tobias was blushing. He sent a secret, grateful look to Rachel.

Marco and I left for my house. We tried to talk about a million things on the way—normal things—but we quickly fell into silence. It was a familiar silence. For the first few weeks I’d had Mielan, it had been hard to find anything worth talking about besides the whole alien thing, too.

When we got home, we played Dead Zone for a while. Neither of us did very well.

Temrash brought Tom in after a while. “Hey, you guys,” he said. “Can I give that a try?”

“Sure.” Marco moved over and gave Tom his control stick.

We played for a few minutes, until Temrash got bored. He gave the control back to Marco and just sat back and watched.

“You guys hear about all the stuff going on with the construction site last night?” he asked. Marco jerked.

“Yeah.” I made myself laugh. “Flying saucers, right. Who do some people think they’re kidding?”

“You were out at the mall last night, weren’t you?” Temrash asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you see any kids hanging around the construction site?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“It’s not like I’d get them in trouble,” Temrash said. “I mean, I think it’s kind of cool. They’re just shooting off fireworks and they get all these people terrified of flying saucers.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Flying saucers,” he said. He made Tom laugh. Marco and I laughed, too. “Only complete dips believe that kind of stuff. You don’t believe in that, do you?” He was looking at Marco. “Aliens and spaceships and little green men from Mars?”

Marco shook his head.

Temrash had Tom nod and stand up. “Cool. It was fun hanging out with you guys. We should do that more. Marco, have you ever thought of joining the Sharing?”

“Why should I join?” Marco asked.

Temrash made Tom grin. “I gotta go,” he said, giving me a playful punch on the shoulder. “Catch you guys later. And don’t forget—let me know if you hear anything about those kids at the construction site.” He left.

Marco’s eyes lingered on where Tom had been. He looked back to me, eyes narrowed. He didn’t say anything.

“What’re you thinking?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I think Tom’s a Controller.”

«Jake we can’t tell him it’ll be too easy to figure us out he’ll hate us _he can morph he will kill us!_ »

« _We_ can keep being careful, but Temrash has practically blown his cover wide open. We’ll look worse if we deny it!»

“Jake?”

Crap. Crap crap crap. How would Not Entirely Normal Jake react? Punch him. No. He was already suspicious of Tom, he had to be suspicious of me, no way he would react well to being attacked by a possible-Controller.

I was taking too long.

“Why?” I blurted into the tense silence.

“Didn’t you see how interested he was in what happened at the construction site? You think that’s a coincidence?”

I gaped at him, then frowned. “Oh jeez.” I shook my head. “This can’t be real.”

Just then I heard this fluttering noise at my window. I went to check it out, and Marco followed me. There was a bird there. Some huge thing like a hawk or eagle or something, beating its wings against the window.

«Let me in, all right? I can’t hover here forever!»

Marco’s eyes went wide. He’d heard it, too.

I opened the window. The bird flew straight in and landed on my dresser.

“It’s some kind of eagle or something,” Marco said.

«A red-tailed hawk, actually,» Tobias said.

“Is that you, Tobias?” Marco demanded. “I thought we weren’t going to do any more of this morphing.”

«I never agreed to that.»

“How long have you been in morph?” I asked Tobias. “You should morph back. Like Elfangor said, never stay in morph for more than two hours.” I already had a friend that was a slug. I didn’t need another one that was a hawk.

Tobias hesitated, but he hopped over onto my bed and started morphing back. It was about three minutes until I had to hand some spare clothes to the naked kid sitting on the end of my bed.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Tobias said. His whole face was glowing. “I was riding the thermals.”

That started a conversation about what it was like being a bird. It was interesting enough, but eventually I had to ask what he was doing as a hawk in the first place.

“What were you doing as a hawk in the first place?” I asked.

“Looking around,” Tobias said. “I guess I thought I might be able to see something from the air. I was looking for something that might be a Yeerk Pool.”

“What’s a Yeerk Pool?” I asked casually, getting up to make sure the door was closed. Very closed.

“What’s that about?” Tobias returned.

I sat back down. “We’re pretty sure Tom’s a Controller.” The word felt like acid on my lips. “So. Yeerk Pool?”

Tobias lowered his voice. “It’s where the Yeerks live in their natural state. Every three days a Yeerk has to leave its host body and go into the Yeerk Pool to soak up nutrients. Especially Kandrona rays.”

Marco and I exchanged a suspicious look. Neither of us had learned any of this while or since meeting Elfangor. I was getting a bit uncomfortable with how much the others were learning about Yeerks.

“At the end,” Tobias explained, “when the Andalite told us all to run for it, I stayed behind for a few seconds. Anyway, he gave me… visions, I guess you’d call them. Pictures. Information. A lot of it, all at once. All jumbled. I haven’t even started to sort it out. But I do know about the Yeerk Pools and the Kandrona. See, the Kandrona is a device that produces Kandrona rays. It’s like this little portable version of the Yeerks’ home sun. The Yeerks need Kandrona rays to live, like humans need vitamins or whatever.”

“Sounds more like plants, really,” I joked. That is my understanding of it, though. It’s some kind of photosynthesis or something.

“Sure. So the Kandrona rays are beamed from wherever the Kandrona is and concentrated in the Yeerk Pool. Once every three days, every Yeerk has to leave its host and go into the Pool. They soak up the rays and then they re-enter the host body.”

“What does this have to do with you flying around playing Superman?” I asked.

“Well, I was thinking maybe I could see the Yeerk Pool.” He smiled ruefully. “Saw a lot of swimming pools and a couple ponds. But I didn’t see anything special.”

“And what if you found some Yeerk Pool? Then what?” Marco demanded.

“Then we’d blow it up.”

No. We were not going to blow up the Pool. How would a bunch of kids even do that? Why would a bunch of kids even do that? Even if Tobias didn’t know enough about Yeerks to think of them as people, what about all the humans in there? He couldn’t be serious.

“Wrong,” Marco said. Thank god for Marco. “We decided _not_ to get into this.”

“Well, I’ve decided,” Tobias said.

“Suddenly the wimp is a hero,” Marco sneered.

“Maybe I just found something worth fighting for, Marco.”

“You don’t even fight for yourself,” Marco said.

“That was before,” Tobias said softly. “Before the Andalite. Before he died trying to save us. I can’t let that go. I can’t let him die for nothing. So whatever you guys decide, I’m going to fight.”

I needed to divert the conversation. “You’re so committed to ‘the Andalite’ and you don’t even say his name,” I said. “And I think Elfangor would have wanted us to save people, not kill them. If the Yeerks feed in this Pool thing, don’t you think their hosts—innocent people—would be down there too?” I shook my head. “We need to do _something_ , but not that.”

Marco snapped his fingers. “The box! We can give some other people the morphing power, and then it’ll be their problem.”

Tobias shook his head. “Like Jake said, anyone could be a Controller. We can’t trust anyone.”

“We could,” Marco insisted. “You said Yeerks have to feed every three days, right? There’s five of us and we can morph. We can keep track of someone for three days, make sure they're trustworthy. And if _you_ still want to get into this whole thing, _you’ll_ have people with you who actually want to be there.”

“All right,” Tobias said. “Jake, Elfangor gave you the box, right?”

“Um,” I said. “About that.”


	3. Cages and Exhibits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to the Pool, a trip to the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I was having some trouble with Marco.

_«...which is why the Andalites hate us. Does that make sense?»_

_I nodded slowly, struggling to take it all in._ I _nodded. Me. Mielan had given me my body back. For a member of a species of parasitic brain slugs, they seemed apologetic about the whole thing. And even I had to agree that if I’d had control the whole time, I’d have given us away to Chapman. No, ‘Visser One-Thirty-Two’. Ugh._

_«We’re not slugs,» Mielan complained._

_«Yeah, whatever,» I thought back._

_A mental sigh. «I told you about us Yeerks, could you tell me about yourself?»_

_«Why can’t you just look through my memories or something?»_

_A bit of the queasiness that I’d felt earlier, when Mielan was controlling my body, came back. They didn’t reply._

_«Hey, stop that.»_

_«I’m an awful Yeerk.» The thought was faint._

_«What?»_

_It all spilled out in a rush. «I don’t want to be here. Having a host, it’s, it’s terrible, I can’t handle it, I can’t feel my own body and it’s terrifying. I’m some giant bipedal_ thing _that can’t hear right or smell right or echolocate at_ all _and there’s this_ vision _thing with all these_ colors _I don’t know what to do with and that’s the worst part I think and I know we’re supposed to have hosts, that it’s a great experience, but I just want to be back in the Pool—»_

_«Whoa, calm down,» I got out. «Why didn’t you stay there, then?»_

_«You don’t say no to a Visser.»_

_I mulled that over for a while. Even if they had gotten out of it, I’d just have ended up with a different Yeerk. If I could get them out of my head somehow… I’d need to run away to keep it from happening again. Could I do that to my parents? Or to—_

_Tom._

_«Do you think you could find a way to let me talk to my brother? My real brother, not Temrash...whatever.» How long had he been a host for? How long had I been hanging out with someone I didn’t know?_

_«Yeah,» Mielan said. «Yeah, I can try.»_

_I closed my eyes. My stomach stopped churning and a wave of gratitude washed over me. It felt nice. «Well, if we’re both stuck like this… maybe we can work something out.»_

 

“I may have possibly dropped the box when we were running from the Yeerks,” I said once the five of us had gathered in Cassie’s barn the next morning. “Did anyone see it?”

I was met with collective head shakes. Which made sense. They hadn’t been looking for it.

“Right. So maybe it was disintegrated, I don’t know. What if it wasn’t?”

“The Yeerks would have it,” Marco declared. Everyone shuddered. Just imagining the Yeerks being able to morph…

…I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, actually.

“If they have it, what can we do about it?” Cassie asked.

Rachel’s eyes lit up. “We can take it back.”

“No.” Marco shook his head. “You guys are dead wrong, and if you tried it, you’d just be straight-out dead. We’re just kids.”

“‘Just kids’ who can _morph_ ,” Tobias cut in. “But first we should find out if they even have it.” He turned to me. “We’re pretty sure Tom’s a Controller, right?” I nodded. “You can listen in on him if he makes any phone calls or something.”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Cool.” Rachel grinned and stood up. “We’ll talk after school tomorrow, then? Wait, no, I have gymnastics. Lunch?”

After a bit of coordination, we dispersed.

Conveniently enough for the plan, I was going to spend some time with Tom right now. Temrash made Tom drive the four of us—him, Tom, me, and Mielan—over to the mall, where we made our way to a certain changing room in the Gap. I ran my fingers down the side of the mirror until they caught on the latch, and the mirror came loose. We were in.

The stairs were long and boring, so naturally, I attempted a conversation. “What happened at the construction site, Sub-Visser? You were there, weren't you?”

Temrash turned Tom’s flat gaze on me. “You want gossip to share, don't you.”

“N-no, Sub-Visser,” I protested. “I only thought that you might have done something then to bring glory to the Empire, and that I might tell others of your prowess.”

Temrash raised one of Tom’s eyebrows. “Suck-up.” He still went and told me how that night had gone for him.

He was present for the death of the Beast! He personally conveyed the order to disintegrate the Andalite’s fighter! He had a Dracon beam ready to kill him if he’d somehow evaded the Hork-Bajir or Visser Three! He shot at those kids as they fled!

A heavy weight settled in the pit of my stomach as he elaborated on that last one.

Temrash was just finishing up when the staircase finally ended. He’d said nothing about a blue box of any kind.

As we approached the pier, he used Tom’s arm to gesture to some of the Hork-Bajir guards. “314, 159, 265, 358.” The four he had called came over, marched one on each side of us, like an honor guard. Of course, it would only stay an honor guard while we still had Yeerks in our heads.

The steel pier clanked under our feet. The Hork-Bajir tread lightly, but their talons left marks in the metal and sounded like nails on a blackboard. The cavern was filled with casual chatter and desperate screams—the constant screamers were in the minority, but the sound carried. I wanted to do something, anything, about it. I had to act like a loyal Yeerk, though. I rolled my eyes. “Why do they even bother?” I complained.

“I wonder that every day,” Temrash agreed.

We reached the end of the pier. I knelt at the edge, turned my head to the side, and leaned down until I could feel the cold nutrient-rich liquid lapping at my ear. «Say hi to the babies for me.»

«Of course,» Mielan replied, and slipped out into the Pool.

I’d rehearsed this plenty of times. I tensed up. I whipped my head up and added my voice to the wailing. I tried to turn and maybe make a run for it, but the Hork-Bajir on either side of me were faster. They grabbed my arms and hoisted me in the air so my legs dangled, and I struggled. I kicked. My pant leg caught on one of their blades and _riiiipped_ a huge gash in the fabric. Crap. Next time I wouldn’t struggle so hard. How was I going to explain that to Mom?

The Hork-Bajir carried me over to my cage, tossed me in, and locked the door. I went limp, like I’d lost all hope, and I waited. I caught my breath. I looked over the tear in my pants and winced: I hadn’t noticed at the time, but my leg had also gotten slashed. The cut was shallow, but it was long. Dark red blood was beading up all along its length. I sighed. Well, my pants were ruined anyway. I used them to dab at the cut. _Ow_. Now that I was paying attention, it kind of stung.

A key clicked in the cage to my left, and I looked up with a smile. “Tom!”

My brother turned his head. “Hey, Jake. Fancy seeing you here.” He offered a smile my way, a bit too wide.

I scooted over until I was as close to him as the bars would allow and stuck my hand through them. He took it. We stayed like that for a while in silence.

“So,” I said. “What happened the other night?”

“I almost killed a bunch of kids,” he said.

“Wasn’t you.”

He shrugged.

We lapsed back into silence.

We had a weird sort of relationship these days. We saw each other a lot, but not when he was in control of his own body. And as far as he knew, at those times I wasn’t in control of my own, either. Even if I had been sure that Tom would be okay with my being voluntary, I still wouldn’t have been able to tell him, because then Temrash would know that Mielan was a human sympathizer. It sucked, but that was how it was.

When we did actually get to talk to each other, we were in cages, surrounded by the nightmarish cavern of the Pool. It wasn’t exactly the basketball courts. Most of the time, it took a while to build up the energy needed for a conversation. Sometimes we’d talk about the invasion, sometimes about current events. Sometimes we trash-talked our Yeerks.

“Temrash was up late on Thursday studying for the history test,” Tom said.

“Isn’t your teacher a Controller, though?”

“Yeah.” Tom rolled his eyes. “You’d think the slug would just take the automatic A, but _no_ , he has to earn it or something.”

I laughed. “That’s slugs for you. Last week Mielan spent hours shooting hoops—I’m pretty sure it’s more of the ‘I’m better at being you than you are’ thing they go for.” It had been a fun afternoon.

My brother grinned. “Joke’s on them, then. When we’re free, you’ll be even better at the game and little two-three-six’ll still be a worthless slug. Either that or dead.”

When we’re free. We’d never made any real plans or strategies; it would’ve been more than useless, considering Temrash. We’d never seriously thought we would have a chance of getting there. But it was always _when_ , not _if_. Maybe now that my friends and I could morph, that _when_ could actually happen pretty soon.

I thought about Mielan, about how I could honestly be proud of my (our) grades for once. About taunting them when they updated me on an older Yeerk’s ongoing attempts to romance them, and having Mielan tease me right back about Cassie, who, granted, I _liked_ , but whatever they said it was _definitely not_ a crush. Sometimes I envied Tom because he had it so simple—Yeerks bad, killing Yeerks good, end of story. Sometimes I wished I could tell him how much more complicated things were.

“I know I’ll be first in line to squish Bacon, if I can get my hands on him,” I replied easily. That, at least, was the truth. ‘Bacon’ was our name for Temrash—it was in part a pun on his name (Tem _rash_ , _rash_ er of bacon), in part because bacon was fried to a crisp and we couldn't think of a better fate for him, in part because bacon wasn't kosher and we figured our rabbi would tell us to stay away from Yeerks, too. Yeah, okay, maybe it was dumb. So what?

If I had the Escafil device, we wouldn't have to worry about that slimy lump of pork anymore. I could get Tom free. I could give him the morphing power and the Yeerks would never find him again. It would be useless if he had Temrash in him at the time, but if I snuck the cube in during feeding time, if I brought a—a fly or something, if I pressed his hands against the glowing blue thing until we could get out of this together…

I would get him out of here.

 

“They don’t have the box,” I said two days later, after school.

Cassie looked at me anxiously. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “I heard Tom talking all about what happened the other night. He didn’t say anything that made me think he even knew it existed.”

“It's got to be at the construction site. We didn't take it, they didn't take it. If it's anywhere, it's there,” Tobias said.

“Then we need to _go_ get it before the Yeerks get their slimy hands on it,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, you do,” Marco said.

«Hey,» said Mielan. «We don’t have hands. And humans are the ones who choose to put slime all over their body when _they_ don’t even need it.»

«We’ve gone over this before, Mielan. That’s soap, and shampoo, and stuff.»

«What’s your point?»

Cassie raised her eyebrows. “Marco, I thought you were against this whole thing.”

He shrugged. “Well, _I’m_ not going to risk my life, but if you guys want to risk yours so much, you should do it soon.”

Tobias narrowed his eyes. “Fine. _You_ can forget all about what Elfangor did for us, and _we’ll_ actually do something to save the world.”

“So except for Marco, we're doing this, then,” I cut in before the conversation turned into an argument. “Great. The site will be crawling with Controllers, so we'll have to go in morph, or at least be ready to morph.”

“We don’t have much going for us there, though,” Rachel said. “So far the only morphs we’ve acquired are a cat, a bird, a dog, and a horse. Not very sneaky. And what if we need to fight them? I think we need a little more firepower. We should head for The Gardens. We need to acquire more DNA—from some animals that are not going to be easy to acquire.” The Gardens was a combination amusement park and zoo. Cassie’s mom worked there.

I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think the hawk, horse, and dog team is going to impress the Yeerks. Rachel’s right. I think we have to head to The Gardens.” I looked to Cassie. “Can you get us in?”

“I can get in free,” she said. “You guys will have to pay, but I can use my mom’s employee discount, so it’ll be cheaper.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could talk them into letting you in for nothing,” Marco said. “Just tell them you’re Animorphs.”

“Tell them we’re what?” Rachel asked.

“Teenagers with a death wish,” Marco said.

“Animorphs.” I tried the word out. It sounded okay.

«It sounds like Andalite.»

«Not really.»

«How about Yeeimorphs? Why don’t you suggest that?»

«Not happening.»

Marco walked off to get his bike and go home. The rest of us left school, hopping a bus out to The Gardens, which was clear across the city.

“I don’t really need to go in,” Tobias said as we pooled our limited cash to buy tickets. “I’m happy with just my hawk morph. I don’t want to be anything else.”

“I think that’s a mistake,” Rachel said. “Our one real weapon is the power to morph. We should acquire as many useful morphs as we can.”

It took about half an hour to reach the main gate of The Gardens. I climbed down off the bus feeling nervous—not at all like I usually felt going there. I mean, The Gardens is plenty fun, normally. But normally I’m not going there to get personal with dangerous animals.

Cassie led us to the main building, which holds all kinds of exhibits. It has everything but the really big animals that need lots of space. Those animals are farther out, mostly, in big grassy habitats that look like parks. Parks with walls and moats and fences around them.

"Okay, now everyone stay together, and try not to be too suspicious-looking," Cassie said. I'm taking you inside."

"Inside where?" I asked.

"Well, the way it works is, there are walkways behind all these exhibits. That's how they feed the animals and give them meds or whatever. Meds are medicines. Sorry." She pointed to an inconspicuous doorway. "Anyway, we can go in through there."

It was an odd change from outside to inside. One minute, we were in this fake rain forest. The next minute, we were in what looked like a hallway at school. Only the smell was worse — kind of damp and moldy and musty. More like the boys' locker room.

We walked through the hallway for a bit until Cassie stopped by one of the doors. "How do you guys feel about gorillas?" she said. "This is Big Jim's cage. He just came over from another zoo, so he's in his own private environment for now. He's very gentle."

Slowly it dawned on me what Cassie was saying. "Oh. You mean, does one of us want to acquire his DNA?"

"That is why we're here, Jake," Rachel pointed out.

“Right,” I said.

We looked around at each other.

Tobias shrugged. “I'll do it.”

Cassie opened her backpack. She took out an apple and handed it to Tobias. "Here. You just open the door. The way it's set up, none of the visitors will be able to see you unless you walk clear out into the cage. Besides, there's an extra security gate, so he can't just jump out and you can't just walk in. So we just open the door, and hope Big Jim feels like eating."

He nodded. We watched as he walked in and offered the apple to Big Jim. Big Jim, by the way, was _huge_. But he seemed happy enough to take the apple and let Tobias touch him, and once he was in the acquiring trance, that was that.

We were walking down the hall again when we heard a whirring noise. It was an electric cart, like a golf cart. The driver was wearing a stained lab coat, and the back of the cart held two big buckets of something brown and foul. Thankfully, he didn't seem too concerned about us being here, and left after a brief greeting.

"That was easy," Rachel said. "He didn't even seem to care that we're back here."

"Well, where next?" Cassie wondered. We were at a four-way corner. There were blank, white-painted hallways in all directions. An electric golf cart was parked there, too.

"What are we near?" I asked.

Cassie thought for a moment. "Okay, that walkway leads to the outer exhibits. That one leads to the offices and storage facilities. These two go around the main building exhibits. We're close to . . . let me see . . . um, bats and snakes that way. The jaguar and the dolphin tank that way."

Rachel started down the hallway to our right. "Dolphins. I love dolphins."

"Wait," Cassie said, trotting after her. "What are we going to do with dolphin morphs?"

Tobias and I followed. “Well, we could spice up a pool party sometime,” I joked.

«And dolphins can echolocate! So you humans could all experience what's it's like to have _proper_ senses, or at least something closer to it.»

“And dolphins can echolocate, so…” I trailed off. “Uh, nevermind.” «Mielan! You almost gave us away!»

«Sorry.»

Tobias looked at me. “So?”

“Uh, so, uh, it would be cool,” I stammered.

“Yeah, I guess.” He started walking faster, since Cassie and Rachel were still a bit ahead. “I think flying is cooler, though.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, relieved.

And that's when the voice yelled, "Hey! Hey, you! What are you kids doing back here?" I saw a guy in a brown uniform.

"Security!" Cassie yelped. "Oh, man, they'll take us all in to the office. They'll call my mom. I do not want to explain this to her."

If we’d been back at the crossroads, we could have split up. He couldn't have gone after all of us. But now, all we could do was run.

"You kids hold on!"

"Oh, man. Oh, man," Cassie said. With that, we took off down the hallway.

Over the next half-hour or so, we didn’t manage to evade security entirely. The guys were adults with longer legs than us, so they could run faster, and one of them took advantage of a nearby golf cart. But where they stuck to the hallways, we cut through the exhibits. Some of the animals didn’t seem to mind, but others did not like us at all. I ended up face-to-face with a hostile jaguar. It really didn’t get much worse than that. (Once the excitement was over, Mielan conjured up an image of one of Visser Three’s nasty things. It was about the size of a house, venomous, and bristling with teeth, claws, spines, and other pointy bits. He’d used it to just about massacre a group of Taxxons and their Yeerks after an accident involving three fighter ships and a few hundred packets of oatmeal. I changed my mind. It got a _lot_ worse than jaguars.) We definitely got out of there with some good morphs, though. As well as some questionable ones. I wasn’t sure when an elephant morph would be useful, but Rachel seemed to like it.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. I managed to get a couple paragraphs into an essay we had to write for English. Dinner was chicken cacciatore. I used the upstairs phone, so Temrash and our parents wouldn’t hear, and called around to make sure there weren’t any problems. I hopped on my bike and rode over to a park a few blocks away from the construction site. Cassie and Rachel had already arrived when I got there.

“Where’s Tobias?” I said.

Rachel pointed up at the sky. The sun was setting fast, but I could see Tobias circling high overhead.

“How long has he been in morph?”

“He was up there when I got here,” Cassie said.

"What is the matter with him?" I exploded. "He's got a two-hour time limit and we don't know how long this is going to take!" I waved my arms until I caught his attention.

Tobias swooped down and perched on Rachel's shoulder. It surprised me a little. Why would Tobias perch on Rachel's shoulder? And she didn't seem at all annoyed. She rubbed her head against him a little. «What’s the problem?»

“You need to demorph,” I said. “You can morph again right away if you want, but you can’t risk getting trapped like that.”

«Fine,» he said. He flapped into a tree. There weren’t many people around at this time of night, but it was good that he was playing it safe like that. Well. As safe as you can get when you’re about to go up against hostile aliens.

Once Tobias was human again, he dropped out of the branches. We all looked around at each other.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll sneak in, morph, and look for the blue box. Once we find it, we get out.”

«I hope this is over with quickly,» Mielan worried.

Tobias nodded. “Whatever we do, we can’t let the Yeerks get access to the morphing power.”

“We need to be really stealthy in there,” said Cassie. “We don’t want it turning into a fight.”

“All right then,” Rachel said. “Let’s do this.”


	4. Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a brief epilogue left, and then on to the next adventure.
> 
> Thanks go to Poetry for being a truly amazing beta, and to LilacSolanum for helping resolve the battle.
> 
> (The dream scene formerly posted as chapter four has been relegated to a new work, Voluntary Omakes.)

_Tom—Temrash, I reminded myself again—opened a secret door in the sci-fi section of the library. I almost chuckled at the irony, but I pressed my lips together. Over the past few days, I had gotten a lot of experience pretending I was an evil alien controlling my body. Or pretending I was an evil alien pretending to be me, when I was around people who didn’t have Yeerks in their heads. The stairs down to the Pool were just as long as I remembered._

_«You won’t tell him about our arrangement—»_

_«I’ve got a sadistic tyrant in my head just like he does, yeah.»_

_«Or about my—»_

_«Host repulsion? What host repulsion? I don’t even know what that means, no siree.»_

_«And you won’t struggle when—»_

_«I’ve got to fight back at least a little if we want them to think I’m involuntary, Mielan. But no, I won’t get carried away with it.»_

_«Okay.» Mielan still sounded kind of anxious. «Okay,» they repeated, more confident this time._

_My stomach growled._

_«Sounds like you’re not the only one who needs to feed,» I suggested._

_Mielan projected a scene of me diving into a swimming pool filled with hamburgers, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud._

_Temrash turned Tom’s head toward me and raised one of his eyebrows. “Is something funny?”_

_I jolted. Quickly, I did my best to straighten my expression. “I was laughing at how pathetic it was that my host thought he could escape, Sub-Visser,” I said._

_Temrash made Tom nod and turn back away from me. “Pathetic is the right word for these humans, yes. Mine is whining pointlessly again.”_

_That was a close one. I internally winced, wondering what my brother would be saying right now if he could. Well, he’d be able to soon enough. I grinned to myself. «It won’t be long until I’m with you again, Tom.»_

_When Temrash made Tom crouch over the roiling liquid, then slid out of his ear, Tom screamed. He ran right for me. Before he could get to me, the Hork-Bajir guards grabbed him and dragged him over to a cage, kicking and fighting. I couldn’t take my eyes off him._

_Then it was my turn. I walked to the end of the pier and knelt down. Mielan left my head. I lay down on the cold steel. I’d been planning to act like I was putting up a fight, but…_ Tom.

_A Hork-Bajir prodded me with a blade. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to be a shock. I stumbled to my feet. Another one joined it and they marched me over to a cage of my own. It was right next to Tom’s. I sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said._

_“No,” Tom said. “I should have—” He stopped._

_I reached out my hand. He took it. I hadn’t held his hand since he showed me_ Body Snatchers _when I was ten, but it seemed appropriate._

_Tom started running his thumb over mine, back and forth, back and forth, like he was reminding himself that he was in control. I held onto him tighter._

_I hated what the Yeerk Empire had made of my brother. And even though there was no way I could have known, I hated myself more for letting it happen._

 

.

 

We stood in one of the half-finished buildings in the construction site. Me, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias. And Mielan, of course. Marco should have been here. He was part of this too, even if he didn’t feel the same way. But I couldn’t do anything about that now. I pawed at what would have been a doorway, and a chunk of concrete fell off.

«Ready, guys?» I asked. Everyone nodded. I crept out the crumbling doorway on jaguar feet. Cassie followed me as a wolf, while Tobias flew overhead in owl morph. Rachel stayed behind for now, because elephants weren’t exactly built for stealth. She was our support if this turned into a fight, but if all went well, that wouldn’t happen.

Like Tobias had said earlier, the Escafil device had to be somewhere in the construction site. It wasn’t destroyed with Elfangor’s ship, because I’d still been holding it at the time. The Empire didn’t have it, because I hadn’t heard anything about it at the Pool two days ago. So it had to be here. Tobias had an aerial view, looking for a bit of bright blue somewhere. Or kinda dull blue, really. Tomorrow night was the new moon and the sky was rapidly darkening, so there wasn’t much light to go by. Meanwhile, Cassie and I prowled through the site on foot, shifting the rubble and random bricks lying around in case the device was hidden under something.

I was poking around the wall where we’d hidden from the Hork-Bajir when I heard breathing coming from the other side. I tensed. The breathing was slow, steady. Maybe it was some sleeping homeless person. Maybe it was a Yeerk and a host lying in wait. Cautiously, I set my paws on top of the wall and lifted myself up so I could stick my head over it. It was a combination of both, really—that policeman from the other day, leaning against the wall and taking a nap.

«Slacker,» Mielan said.

«Yeah, but it works out well for us, doesn’t it?»

«I found it!» Cassie called.

The policeman jerked awake. He looked wildly around himself. For a brief, brief moment, we made eye contact, and it was like the world froze around us.

He pulled out a Dracon beam.

The jaguar pounced. It didn’t know what a Dracon beam was or how it worked, but it knew the cop was trying to kill it, and it wanted to kill him first. My claws sprang out. My hind legs found purchase on the top of the wall, then _pushed_ , sending me towards him fast and hard. My jaws opened wide, my teeth grasped his skull, and I—

« _Jake!_ » Mielan cried.

I didn’t bite down. But I drew blood and growled a long, deep growl and when I released him I told him to « _Run_.» He ran. I heard shouting.

«Cassie, you said that so everyone could hear!» I scolded in private thoughtspeech.

«Yeah, I realized that,» she said. «Rachel! I need backup!»

«Coming!» Rachel said, and I heard a trumpeting bellow.

«Tobias, how are you doing up there?»

«Not good!»

I looked up. Tobias was wheeling about the sky, evading blast after blast of Dracon fire. I sprinted to one of the group shooting up at him—a Hork-Bajir—and gave her a swipe on the legs with my claws. She cried out. I didn’t know enough about their anatomy to know whether they had Achilles tendons, but it certainly hurt her enough. She spun around, lashing out at me with the blades on her arms. I tried to dodge. I mostly succeeded, though she sliced a gash into my side. I glanced up again, but couldn’t see Tobias anymore. Hopefully he was okay. I roared at the Hork-Bajir, sounding like a car revving up, or maybe a chainsaw, and I prepared to attack again.

It was chaos. It was terrifying. We were going to die here. There was never any chance that we would make it, not against the Empire. I didn’t know why we’d even bothered to try.

Okay, this _was_ really scary, but the sense of doom I was feeling was a bit much. Which meant...my stomach sank for a better reason.

«Andalites!» Visser Three announced. «It seems not all of you died when I destroyed your ship.»

Andalites? Oh. He knew we were morphed, and only Andalites had the morphing power. Until recently, at least, but he didn’t know everything that had happened that night. He didn’t know about us. So he thought we were Andalites. Okay, we could use that.

«I acquired this body on the fourth moon of the second planet of a dying star. Like it?» The Visser began to morph, growing, growing. His torso stretched and stretched and sprouted more arms. «Did you know that this is the very spot where your precious Prince Elfangor met his fate? He was delicious.» His legs widened and split apart, his tail shriveled into nothing, his hands fused into three-fingered claws. He grew head after head after head until there were eight in total. When he finally finished, he grinned eight sharp-toothed grins and spat fireballs into the air. «And now, brave warriors, you will join him.»

I stood there, frozen. I didn’t know what to do. I hoped that Mielan had some idea, but they were silent.

My ears twisted at the sound of hoofbeats, and my eyes followed. Was that? No, it couldn’t be. An Andalite who looked for all the world like Elfangor stood on top of a pile of rubble, alive and in perfect health, without even the wound he’d had.

«Stop!» Tobias shouted. I still couldn’t see him, but it was a relief to know that he was okay.

Wait.

That night. When the Visser’s ship was arriving, and Elfangor told us to run. Tobias had stayed behind, had shared a moment with the Andalite prince.

He went and got himself a morph right then and there, didn’t he?

«Is that Tobias?» Rachel asked.

«Yeah. Yeah, I think so,» I said.

The Visser hadn’t realized what we had. «I _ate_ you,» he said, and the artificial fear was fading like he was too distracted to keep it up. He sounded like a sulky kid. «I did it before, and I’ll do it again.» His eight legs crouched as he lowered his heads to eye level.

Tobias’s legs were trembling. «Guys, get away while he’s distracted!»

I ran. I was sprinting as fast as my legs could take me. But I wasn’t running away. Visser Three had brought his heads into reach, and the jaguar knew what to do with heads it didn’t like. He was focusing on Tobias and my pelt was black on black, so he didn’t see me. And then I was on him, and I was biting, and crushing, and the skull went _snap_.

« _Aaaaaagh!_ » Seven heads reared up in pain. The eighth was limp in my jaws.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tobias galloping away. Good. I let the mangled head fall to the ground and joined him. Soon the four of us were together again, running like our lives depended on it. Which they did. Dracon beams were flying through the air, but we were faster than any human, Hork-Bajir, or Taxxon. By the time we got back to the park, we’d lost them, and once we all demorphed to human we knew we were safe.


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to Poetry for betaing.

The night was so dark that I could barely see the box in my hands. It was cool to the touch, but thanks to my body heat it was already a bit warmer than when I pulled it out of the old water pump. Once we’d gotten away last night, we’d agreed that Cassie’s barn would be the safest place to put it. It wouldn’t have ended well if I’d kept it, considering Temrash. But keeping the device here was a huge pain when I wanted to use it without anyone finding out.

I glanced at the door. Still no one. Good.

«You remember what to do, right?»

«Of course.»

Slowly, I held my hand to my ear, and out came Mielan. I slid them onto the top of the device. A shock ran through my fingers where I was holding it, just like that first time with Elfangor. I picked Mielan up again. With my other hand, I rubbed the device against my shirt to get the slime residue off, then put it back into the pump. I twisted the screws back into place— they might be a little loose, but it wouldn’t be obvious.

I walked out of the barn, careful not to make too much noise, and made my way a couple hundred feet into the woods. Then I poked Mielan twice with a finger.

_ Whoa _ . I’d seen what it looked like when you were acquiring something, but feeling it was something else. Everything seemed to fade away, like it wasn’t quite real. The only thing that mattered was that I was really, really relaxed. I barely even noticed when Mielan started to change, but once I noticed, I snapped right out of it.

The first thing that happened was they grew. Still Yeerk-shaped, but not Yeerk-sized, and getting less so by the second. I had to put them on the ground before they fell out of my hand. When they were about half my size, their fins split into fives, developing limp fingers and toes before shooting out into arms and legs. Their tail  _ schlooped _ away into what was starting to look like a torso. An eye grew out of each of their...sensory stalk things and blinked once before retreating into their head.

This whole time, I hadn’t heard any of the cracking noises that I had started to associate with morphing. For a moment, Mielan looked like a human meat puppet thing, kind of deflated in a really disturbing way. Then, finally, the bones came in all at once.

When it was done, Mielan was a human kid lying flat on the ground. A human kid who looked just like me—and didn’t have any clothes.

“I think we forgot something,” I said.

«We’ll deal with that later,» they said, and got to their feet. «This is really weird.»

“You have a mouth, you know. Good weird or bad weird?”

“Right.” They examined their hands. It was really freaky, looking at them, the way they looked just like me but didn’t act the same. Their posture was just a little off, their head tilted one way when I tilted it the other. And their face was all wrong. I knew it was just that I mostly saw myself in mirrors, and it was the mirror-view that was flipped and not Mielan, but it felt  _ wrong _ . I was reminded of the pod people from that movie. But then, this was Mielan. I trusted them. “It’s like when I’m in your head, except it’s not like that at all.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t feel sick at all. It feels more natural, I think, now that I’m actually getting the instincts.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Well, here’s your official welcome. You’re now a real Animorph.”


End file.
